NEWS Sven Olaf Kamphuis calls himself the “minister of telecommunications and foreign affairs for the Republic of CyberBunker.†Others see him as the Prince of Spam. Mr. Kamphuis, who is actually Dutch, is at the heart of an international investigation into one of the biggest cyberattacks identified by authorities. Because of his outspoken position in a loose federation of hackers, authorities in the Netherlands and several other countries are examining what role he or the Internet companies he runs played in snarling traffic on the Web this week. Eric Pfanner and Kevin J. O’Brien report.
More than 143,000 home mortgages are in arrears in Ireland, but forced repossessions have been politically and legally difficult. That is about to change. Under pressure from the international lenders who agreed to a €85 billion bailout of the Irish economy in 2010, a law that has been restricting banks’ right to repossess property is being amended to allow them to repossess delinquent properties. As Ireland’s fellow euro zone member Cyprus may be about to learn, bailouts come with strings that can bind for years to come. Stephen Castle reports from Dublin.
One of the most senior employees of the SAC capital has been ensnared in the government’s multiyear insider trading investigation of the prominent hedge fund. F.B.I. agents showed up at the apartment of Michael S. Steinberg on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and arrested him in the pre-dawn hours Friday. Just the day before, Mr. Steinberg had returned from a vacation in Florida, where he and his family visited relatives and took a trip to Disney World. Peter Lattman reports from New York.
American Express customers trying to gain access to their online accounts this week were met with blank screens or an ominous ancient type face. The company confirmed that its Web site had come under attack. The assault, which took American Express offline for two hours, was the latest in an intensifying campaign of unusually powerful attacks on American financial institutions that began last September and have taken dozens of them offline intermittently, costing millions of dollars. Nicole Perlroth and David E. Sanger report.
SPORTS If Robbie Rogers returns to professional soccer, he would become the first openly gay male athlete to compete in a major American team sport. In an interview with The New York Times, he opens up about his decision to come out of the closet. Letters and e-mails and texts have flowed in from North America, Europe and Asia, and Rogers has been grateful for the support. But there has also been a growing wonder about whether Rogers will consider continuing his career, making him the first openly gay male athlete to play in a major American team sport. Sam Borden reports.
ARTS The spiraling inflation that is pushing the art of the past to ever more dizzying heights has auction house bosses rolling their eyes in ecstasy. Reports recently released sing to high heaven world auction records and gigantic sales, but refrain from noting that these are in danger of driving the market into a brick wall. Souren Melikian reports.
